


our house on fire (we're burning)

by angorwat



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Car Accidents, Drunk Driving, F/M, Female!Calum, Future Calum Hood/Ashton Irwin, Genderbending, Genderswap, Grief/Mourning, Kinda, Major Character Injury, Marriage Proposal, Moving On, Past love confessions, Pregnancy, Rule 63, This Is Sad, description of a car accident but it's really not graphic, it's just sad, no harm to the pregnant person i promise, the marriage doesnt happen tho, the rest of them are the same, unrequited love but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25325422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angorwat/pseuds/angorwat
Summary: calum is four weeks pregnant when michael crashes the car.
Relationships: Luke Hemmings/Calum Hood
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	our house on fire (we're burning)

calum is four weeks pregnant when michael crashes the car and luke dies. four weeks. not enough for her to know, but enough for it to show on her blood test results that her assistant collects for her the morning after.

the morning after, when ashton shows up at her door, ashen-faced, visibly shaking – almost like he’s in disbelief, almost like, for the first time, ashton would rather be anywhere but at calum’s house. almost the way he had looked the night he said i love you and calum showed him the ring on her finger.

michael was drunk. michael was drunk or he was high or he was something but michael should not have been behind the wheel of that car. michael was drunk or he was high but he’s still here and luke isn’t. michael was drunk or he was high but calum wishes he was gone instead and she screams as much at him the next day after she reads the reports with shaking hands – both reports, the one from the accident and the one that tells her there is still part of luke inside her. michael was drunk or he was high but he wasn’t a father. luke could have been.

it's raining at the funeral, and calum is irrationally glad for it. she had been scared it wouldn’t, that it might be sunny throughout, that somehow the world could still be golden with him gone. him, her gold haired sunlight, who had laughed when she had jokingly called him apollo but still sung the song she had written it into, who turned his head to kiss her hand every time she ran it through his curls. the last one to call her love and mean it, the first one to kiss her like she was worth it. he’s gone and calum can’t even make herself say his name.

it’s raining at the funeral and people hug her like they knew luke, like they had seen into the parts of him that he hadn’t liked and loved all of them. hug her like they matter, like anything does anymore, as if her sky, her sun and stars, and all her planets hadn’t been wrenched away, like they could survive an ounce of the grief she has to live through. she thinks her shoulders will cave in, wonders if this how atlas felt.

she wonders how luke felt too. wonders if he saw it coming, if he heard the metal wrenching, the sound of the impact. if he felt himself go through the windshield, felt it when the shards went through him. wonders if he felt the fire that melted everything it touched. she doesn’t ask the doctors if he was in pain. she doesn’t think she can live through the answer. thinks she maybe already knows it.

michael has a broken arm and a shattered leg and six cracked ribs that she thinks is six too few. he has a skull fracture and his vision will never be the same again and calum wants him dead but she doesn’t. not really. she just wants luke not dead but she can’t have that. she wants it all gone, wants them to be kids in sydney again, wants to turn back the clock, for them to never get on that plane to london. he would’ve been a teacher and she would’ve taught football and they would’ve had to work to put themselves through uni and it would be mundane, an ordinary life. they would have been normal. he would be alive.

zayn always told her this industry would take its pound of flesh as payment. she never thought it would be so literal.

luke was her classmate then best friend then bandmember then boyfriend then fiancé and that’s when the trail ends, where the map is lost. next week he would have been her husband, eight months later he would have been father but not everyone is meant to hold all the titles like that. he will never be anything beyond fiancé. calum will never be a widow. all the loss she has to bear, all the grief she holds, will never have a name on paper. it should matter less than it does, she thinks. 

luke was here. then he was gone. it doesn’t seem fair.

she tells his mother first. it seems fitting, almost, that she loses a son, and calum gains one. like there could never be an overabundance of happiness, like the universe was telling her that she could never keep both, never keep all.

liz sobs in her arms. she sounds broken, in a way calum isn’t sure will ever be fixed, even while the two who could almost be luke help her into bed, jack staying behind a moment to pour her a glass of water. she wants to ask him how he feels, but her mouth can’t move shape the words and push them out but he nods like understands anyway. next week she would have been sister in relation, but now she wonders if she’s one in name.

ashton moves in. ashton moves in because he isn’t sure what to do, because he promised luke he would always take care of her – luke, who’s best man he was supposed to be, who’s wedding he wasn’t sure he would be able to stand through, not when he wanted to be him so badly.

luke would’ve loved this, he thinks. would’ve loved to be a dad, to take care of calum, to watch her grow, to attend her every whim. would have child-proofed the house with the same dedication he sang with, would’ve decorated it.

ashton does it now. he never wanted it this way.

the funeral is cold. all calum remembers is the cold, despite the coat she knows ashton puts on her. he had dressed her this morning, had washed her under the shower, pulled up her stockings, tied up her hair. calum isn’t really sure how to move anymore. isn’t sure how to talk either.

she doesn’t think she’s done either of those in a while.

the coffin is closed. the coffin is closed because there hadn’t been enough left of him to fill it. the coffin is closed because that’s how they had found them, they tell michael later. that he had been dragging himself through the glass trying to find enough of luke to hold on to. he had dragged himself through the glass because he had promised calum he would bring luke back to her.

calum had promised to marry luke. luke had promised to love calum. michael had promised to bring luke back. ashton had promised to take care of her. they had promised to watch each other’s backs.

next week calum would have promised to love and cherish, in sickness and in health, above all. wonders if the rehearsal counts.

ashton remembers an interview, laughing as he asks if statistically the children voted to be most successful in yearbooks they never were in line up with those who actually are. wonders if there are statistics for people who promise. wonders if he will be the only one to not break his.

ashton moves in. ashton moves in and he cooks and cleans and drives calum to her doctor’s appointments. he talks to management, he cancels the tour, he tweets their grief and asks for privacy.

he wakes up every morning to make breakfast, to visit michael, to make sure calum eats. he isn’t really sure of what else to do, doesn’t think he has been home in a while.

calum doesn’t talk. not at the funeral. not after, not to the doctor who nods, her lips pressed thin. he doesn’t think she’s talked since liz left. the studio in the house is locked, the small fortune in acoustic and electric guitars, in basses and records gathering dust. ashton hasn’t heard music in a while. they were halfway through an album. out there are recordings of luke singing the beginning of songs nobody would ever write the end of.

calum thinks every flash of golden hair is him. every beam of sunlight, every sunflower. sees him in things she never noticed before. opens the bottle of tequila he had been drinking the night before and presses her hand to the rim, as if there’s enough of him there for her to absorb through her skin. as if he drank from the bottle. 

ashton looks at his hands sometimes like he doesn’t know what to do with them when they aren’t moving. like when they aren’t working he isn’t sure if they really exist, if they really belong to him. they shake sometimes, and he curls them into fists, rests them against his chest. he’s seen michael’s hands. he will never play a guitar again, because it’ll be a miracle if his ever stop shaking. he will never play a guitar again. they will never be a band again. luke will never walk through those doors again, ready to pick up a protesting calum as she pounds her fists on his back for him to put her down while ashton laughs and michael smiles, picking at strings. calum will never hold a bass again. calum will never hold luke again either.

there are a lot of nevers in his life, ashton thinks, where there used to be none.

he’s put her to bed. he’s put her to bed and he’s about to start his own nightly routine of sitting on the couch watching whatever garbage the tv spews at him until he passes out and wakes up to the sun so he can do it all over again.

“ash”, calum says, and he turns around so fast he thinks he may have pulled something, “ash”, calum says and he could cry because he hasn’t heard her voice in so long he had started listening to old recordings just so he could remember what it sounded like. “ash, stay.” she says and ashton climbs in next to her. he holds her through the night, even when her hands grip him so tight he knows there will be marks tomorrow. 

they were supposed to be married today, he remembers in the morning. carefully moves the grey garment bags from the guest room – matching his and hers, to storage. nobody needed to see them again, he thinks. not in this lifetime.

he does peek inside once, just once, because if there is something he’s good at, it’s breaking his own heart. the dress is ivory, lace and long sleeves, a high neck. he had been there when she had picked it, had been the one to say ‘this is it cal’, to twirl her around as she laughed. had also been the one to hand luke the grey suit, to tell him it works. been there to see him laugh, the sheer happiness in his tone something that still rings in ashton’s ears in a way that all the screaming voices in his head cannot draw out.

he hasn’t heard laughter in a while.

calum cries the first time she has to go through morning sickness. sobs for hours and hours, sitting next to the porcelain, the sound breaking whatever’s left of ashton’s heart. he can’t help but think luke would’ve known what to do, always knew what to do when it came to calum. she wants him, he knows, wants him to be the one rubbing her back and holding back her hair and bringing her water and telling her it’ll be fine.

but he isn’t. he isn’t he isn’t he isn’t and ashton cries into his sleeve the whole time he holds calum’s hair back.

when michael can leave the hospital, ashton runs into crystal for the first time in a while. she’s red-eyed and bony-wristed and he can’t help the guilt crashing into him when he remembers she had lost someone too.

“ash”, mike says from the wheelchair, clutching for his arm and missing by a mile. he would always have difficulty perceiving depth, the doctors had said. michael, all of thirty, six years married. michael, who accidentally killed his best friend. “ash,” he says, “you’ll tell her won’t you, ash please, you’ll tell her i’m sorry.”

ashton nodded, letting michael hold his arm as he reassured him that he would. because if he had lost luke then michael had lost calum too, calum who was more him than he was himself somedays, calum who he had known since before he had picked up his guitar, calum who he was supposed to know forever.

“i’m taking him home” crystal said. “they’ll do physiotherapy until he’s able to walk. there’s therapy to help him gauge depth too.”

“solutions for everything these days.” ashton says, as he wraps an arm around her shoulder and kisses her forehead before he pushes michael’s wheelchair to the car. the paparazzi is strangely respectful. he thinks it’s because they had all seen the photos but he later learns calum had called offices and threatened murder if there was even a scratch on anyone or anything. when he gets back home she’s on the sofa again, her hand wrapped around a mug of tea he did not make her.

he wraps himself around her in thanks. its progress.

“he kicked.” she says one morning, and ashton stands up so fast he hits his head on the door of the cupboard he was searching for masala in.

“what?” he says, and she tugs his hand forward, puts it on her belly. ashton feels the flutter under his hand, then the solid hit and gasps.

“christ.” he swears, and calum almost laughs, halfway through it when she realises why she shouldn’t.

later he finds her in the hallway, clutching one of the picture frames from the wall. it’s her and luke the night he asked her to marry him, the night ashton told her he loves her and broke his own heart.

“he wanted to paint the extra room yellow.” she says in a way that shows she’s trying to make it seem like it wasn’t important. “when we decided to try, he said he wanted to paint it yellow.”

the room is yellow by the end of the week. calum doesn’t say anything but ashton catches her half-smile as she touches the crib.

“is he okay?” she asks one night, and ashton shifts to look at her. they had taken to sleeping the same bed for weeks now, barely touching. he thinks it comes from years of being on the road together, of knowing what someone’s breathing sounds like better than you know yours. comfort, more of presence than touch.

“hmm?” he asks, half-asleep as his cheek rests against the pillow. this isn’t the bed she slept in with luke. that one is three doors down in the room calum refuses to open but he still feels like he’s sleeping in his side of the bed. wonders what luke would say if he could see them now, if he ever thought this is what it would come down to when he asked ashton all those years ago to take care of her. before there had been a ring or a platinum album or ashton telling her he loved her.

“michael?” she asks. “how is he?”

“he’s walking on his own.” ashton says, trying to remember exactly what crystal had told him. “for short periods of time. can tell when his eyes are lying to him, mostly, so he knows to reach further, or more left than they tell him. he has his days, still.”

“i miss him.” she says, as if she’s whispering a secret. “i’m so angry at him most days that i could scream all day and have it not enough, but i miss him as if it’s a physical thing. like it’s tangible.”

“grief becomes a presence.” ashton says. he read that somewhere, and he knows there’s too much loss calum is grieving to name each of them individually. they aren’t talking about michael anymore, even as they are. “someone’s absence becomes a presence, as if it’s a noticeable thing.”

“i want him back.” calum says, and ashton holds his breath, she hasn’t taken his name since the day of. “i want him back ash, it isn’t fair, he promised, he said he would be here.” and her fists are hammering into ashton’s chest even as the sobs break out of her, finally, _finally_. “i want him back, i want Luke back.”

all ashton can do is hold her. all he can do is hold her, and run his fingers through her hair as her anger subsides, and only the grief remains. tomorrow, they will drive to michael’s and calum will scream at him until they both cry. tomorrow, he will lay in bed with them for hours, and they will discuss stories, and make fun of him like they used to, but gentler, because he isn’t here to defend himself anymore. tomorrow, michael and calum and ashton will try to rebuild a friendship, and succeed, even though it will take a while. tomorrow, michael will feel his godson kick for the first time, even though he isn’t going to know that for months. but that’s all for tomorrow.

tonight it’s this: them, and the moonlight through the window, luke’s son and his presence between them. tonight they’re lost, one last time.

* * *

when he comes into the world, he’s kicking and screaming and ashton thinks calum may have broken one of his fingers with her grip.

“Fletcher,” she gasps out, “his name is Fletcher Michael Hemmings-Hood.”

ashton smiles, gently presses a kiss to the back of her hand as if both of them can’t see the tears streaming down her face.

“treat him gently please,” she says, “he’s the fifth second of summer.”

* * *

when they lay in bed together now, they touch. it's just the two of them. 

calum thinks the sunlight approves. she sends a kiss to the sun anyway. 

**Author's Note:**

> im tired and depression sucks and i want my grandfather back and i want to be in college and i want people to care more.  
> mostly, i just want love to exist sustainably. and for all of you to be happy. i wrote this in two hours after three cups of chai and no sleep. please excuse how bad it is.  
> also: inspiration mostly from that scene in the no shame video when michael crashes the car. and luke’s funeral. angsty cal is just so easy yknow.  
> you can maybe expect more fem!cal from me bc honestly it’s a crime how few genderbent fics there are in this fandom.  
> thank you for reading.  
> let me know if i missed any tags.


End file.
